


your little world fallin' apart

by askmeaboutmyoctopustheory



Series: thick as theives [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Barnes Strays, Clint Barton's Farm, Deaf Clint Barton, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Secret Relationship, mentions of HYDRA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21667252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/askmeaboutmyoctopustheory/pseuds/askmeaboutmyoctopustheory
Summary: RJ changes his mind, but a surprise visit from their favorite soviets makes them need to relocate.Bucky knows just the spot.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & RJ Boyle, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: thick as theives [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572076
Comments: 11
Kudos: 57





	your little world fallin' apart

**Author's Note:**

> i know i said i was taking a break and i am!!! 
> 
> there aren't enough fics of bucky being rj's adopted chaotic gay dad
> 
> as you can see i'm picking and choosing clint characterizations
> 
> and i'm also using those few panels of the fatws comic we got a preview of
> 
> also we talk a lot about barton strays but bucky picks up a lot too 
> 
> find me on twitter to see my shitposts while i'm on this hiatus @_AMAMOT

Bucky stood over the grave, phone pressed to his ear. “RJ?” 

“Mr. Barnes…” The kid’s voice was shaking and he sounded like he was crying. 

“Hey, kid.” Bucky motioned to Sharon, who just sighed heavily and crowded closer to him. “What’s wrong?”   
  
“I killed him.” The rasp voice said into the phone. 

Bucky had a flashback to the kid punching him at the foot of his stairs a few days ago, saying that he wasn’t a killer. 

“Hey it’s ok.” Bucky said into the phone already mentally figuring out safehouses and networks for the kid. “What do you need?”   
  
“If it’s not too late…” Bucky heard RJ swallow over the phone. “I’d like to come back to live with you.”

“Sure thing, kid.” Bucky was already going over to the car and motioning to Sharon to follow. 

\----

RJ had been living back with Bucky for all of about 12 hours before shit hit the fan. Quite literally. Bucky was just minding his own business doing his early morning meditation and RJ was… somewhere else. Alpine’s little disgruntled noise was Bucky’s only warning before the sound of glass shattering and his instinctual self-defense against the rain of bullets clattering into his house. He kicked and yanked and punched at whatever he could, stealing guns when he could get a hand on them and snapping necks as he went. 

RJ was handling himself downstairs when Bucky finally crashed down the staircase. They fought side to side, back to back, oddly in tune with the other in a way that Bucky didn’t want to analyze right now. When the dust cleared, they were both panting and holding weapons that the intruders had been attacking with. Tiny claws relaxed on Bucky’s back and he felt Alpine climb up onto his shoulder properly and absently patted him. RJ looked a little sick when Bucky toed one of the dead men on the floor onto his back and uncovered his face.

“Hydra?” He asked, to which RJ nodded. “You recognize them?”   
  
“Yeah.” RJ’s voice was hollow.

“Shit.” Bucky said looking around at the glass and blood that covered the house. “We gotta move, kid.”

“Could’ve put that one together myself.” RJ said, a bit more emotion in his voice now.

“We’re out of here in 20, do what you gotta do.” Bucky nodded at him. 

Exactly 20 minutes later RJ came into what was left of the house’s garage and saw Bucky putting a duffel bag into a sidecar to his motorcycle. 

“Oh no no no. No way.” RJ said, gesturing to the sidecar. “No way I’m riding in that thing.”   
  
“Well it’s either in there, or in here.” Bucky gestured to his halfway zipped jacket where Alpine’s head was poking out with a satisfied expression on his face. 

RJ scowled and just folded himself into the small seat, accepting the helmet that Bucky handed him. “Where’re we going?”

“Less you know, the better.” Bucky growled as he burned rubber on the quiet suburban street. A few beats later. “A friend’s place.”   
  
“You have friends?”

Bucky ignored him and directed the motorcycle onto the freeway. It was still early and there weren’t many cars on the interstate for the first few hours of the two flying past corn fields and pastures of cows. When the first of the commuter traffic started pouring onto the highway, Bucky peeled off and pulled into a gas station. 

“Here.” He handed RJ a slip of paper and a wad of bills. “Go inside, buy somethin to eat, a lighter, and get me some coffee. Get change and then go call this number on the payphone and say this and only this. Burn it with the lighter afterwards. Oh get a can of tuna too.”

“Alrighty.” RJ said with a scowl. 

When he had retreated into the store, Bucky let himself relax only slightly. There were no other cars at the gas station and he didn’t think a highway stop gas station attendant would be Hydra. But they should probably take backroads from here on out. He softly let Alpine down onto the sand by the parking lot to dig around to do his business. The click of the gas nozzle filling up his tank and his reserve tank brought his focus back to the immediate. RJ was walking out of the phone booth, stamping a smoking piece of ash into the ground and lighting a cigarette. 

“Smoking isn’t good for you, kid.” 

RJ shrugged. “Since they shot me up with your blood I haven’t been able to get sick and I still look 16, might as well have fun with it.”

Bucky paled a bit at that and just looked at the young man for a few moments. “Ok well just put it out in the sand, we’re at a gas station.”

“Thanks genius.” RJ rolled his eyes but tamped the butt of the cigarette into the sand on top of the trash can. “Nice coded message, by the way. ‘Early snowfall this year, going to check on the birdhouse’? What does it mean?”   
  
“Like I said kid, the less you know the better.”

Bucky picked up Alpine and looked at RJ expectantly. The younger man sighed and took the cat and placed him gently by his feet. Bucky swung his leg over the bike again and paused to look down at the sidecar. 

“Hey. Uh.” Bucky started awkwardly. “I’m sorry. About… everything but-”   
  
“I know.”   
  
“No, I didn’t know they had used  _ my blood _ , kid. That’s fucked. I’m sorry that happened to you.” Bucky looked down at the gauges between his handlebars. 

“Thanks, uh. Bucky.” RJ said somewhat awkwardly. 

Bucky just nodded and flicked his engine into gear. Rather than pulling off towards the interstate again, he turned down the country road and began speeding through the farmland and small towns. They had flown past the Indiana-Illinois some time ago and Bucky seemed single-minded in his focus. He didn’t look over at RJ again until they were at a stoplight in one of the larger of the small towns they had ridden through.

“You need to eat?” Bucky asked with a crease between his brows.

“I’m ok.” RJ responded, absently stroking Alpine where he had moved into his lap. 

“We’ll be there before dinner.” Bucky reassured him. “I’m making good time.”   
  
“Yeah because you drive like a maniac.”   
  
Bucky laughed and pulled the bike up to the next stoplight. “I sat in a sidecar just like that with Captain America driving through Nazi Germany, don’t talk to me about driving like a maniac.”

RJ huffed a little chuckle and Bucky chalked that up to a success. It was midday when he pulled back onto the interstate and flew over the Iowa border. For all the internal anguish it was giving him, Bucky had to give another reluctant approval to the serum for keeping them both awake and functional all day with minimal food or breaks. RJ must have somehow dozed off or zoned out, startling slightly when they finally pulled off the interstate and slowed onto a country road exit. 

“Where the fuck are we?”

“Iowa.” Bucky said. “We’re not in the clear just yet, kid but almost there.”

“You gonna tell me where we’re goin’ yet?” 

“No, but I’ll tell you that not a lot of people know about this.”   
  
“Is it a ‘you’ll tell me but then you’ll have to kill me’ type of thing?” RJ asked with a slightly sour grin.

“No, it’s a ‘only people important to me know’ type of thing.” Bucky looked back at him seriously. “You’ll understand.”

Bucky could sense the young man getting more confused and possibly slightly annoyed the deeper they drove into the farm country dotted with the occasional copse of trees. He would put money on the fact that RJ wasn’t anticipating him pulling onto a dirt driveway that led into a slightly more densely wooded area. Alpine let out a mrow? from where he was sleeping at RJ’s feet and poked his head up to peer out the sidecar. 

Bucky parked the bike at the end of the driveway, a ways away from the farmhouse. It had a porch and there was a red barn in the distance. A dog was barking. 

The dog barking came barreling out the screen door a moment later, a blur towards Bucky that earned a hiss from Alpine before the dog sharply changed target to pursue him. The dog was followed by a mess of purple-clad limbs that righted themselves into a tall blond man shirtless in bright purple sweatpants with a longbow trained directly at Bucky and RJ.

“Hawkeye?” RJ said incredulously. “Hawkeye has a farm in Bumfuck, Iowa?”

Bucky sighed and gave him a look. Clint had lowered the bow and was walking towards them with long, loping strides. He tilted his head slightly as he approached Bucky to show him that he wasn’t wearing hearing aids. Bucky signed something to him quickly and Clint seemed to laugh and nod. He waved at RJ.

“Hey, I can’t hear you but you two should come in.” 

Bucky and RJ gathered their things and made their way up to the house, where Bucky ushered the younger man inside. Inside, Clint was looping his aids onto his ears and shoving bits of fletching off the dining room table. Bucky glanced over at RJ only momentarily and wished he could see the shocked look on his face when he leaned up and kissed Clint deeply on the mouth.

“What?” RJ nearly shouted, backing away. “Did- Is this real? Or is this like Alternate Reality? Did I run into some magic?”   
  
“Hey, hey. Easy kid.” Clint said calmingly.

Bucky nodded and reached out to RJ, only to draw his metal hand back a moment later at the recoil from the younger man. “Nobody’s messing with your brain. No manipulation, I promise. Just me, and Clint, and the animals.”

“Nobody’s messing with me, just Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier have a farmhouse in Iowa with a golden retriever that nobody knows about?”   
  
“When you put it like that…” Clint remarked as he hummed his lips against Bucky’s forehead.

“Some people know about it.” Bucky retorted. “Oh I should call Tony. And Sharon. I take it you didn’t get a message from her, babe?”   
  
“Nah, I didn’t.” Clint said back, looking over Bucky’s head to see RJ mouthing  _ babe?? _ to himself.

  
“Ah well. Surprise.” Bucky said, to which Clint laughed. “I have a kid now!”   
  
“Hey, well.” Clint winked at RJ “Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> also i low-key wanna make this a little series because i love the concept??? 
> 
> if you have anything you'd want to see in this 'verse lemme know


End file.
